Novozymes A/S : RONOZYME® ProAct introduced to U.S. market

In 2011, Novozymes and DSM began selling an innovative breakthrough to the U.S. poultry market: RONOZYME ProAct, the first pure protease for use in animal feed. RONOZYME ProAct offers great value to poultry producers by improving the digestion and uptake of protein in broiler chickens. This reduces both feed costs and environmental impact.

The U.S. remains the world's largest producer of poultry, raising 8.79 billion birds annually for food.  As such, the industry is influenced by growing global demand for poultry, increasing feed costs and pressure on food prices.  All of which makes it increasingly hard for producers to turn a profit. At the same time, political and public pressure to reduce environmental impact continues to increase.

These circumstances challenge U.S. poultry producers to make more food from less feed, at an affordable price for consumers. "High feeding costs and resource constraints remain the biggest challenges for the U.S. poultry industry," says Peter Christensen, Global Marketing Manager at Novozymes. "Poultry producers are looking for sustainable solutions now more than ever to combat these challenges."

Enabling more sustainable production
RONOZYME ProAct is a proven solution to the challenges faced by the U.S. poultry industry. It can improve both the economic and environmental sustainability of poultry production.  As the first pure protease enzyme for feed, it complements the bird's own digestive enzymes, improves protein digestibility and makes more amino acids available to the animal. 

This is important because poultry producers currently have to over feed the broilers with up to 4% more protein in order to achieve the desired absorption rate of amino acids for optimum growth. Adding RONOZYME® ProAct to feed allows the diet to contain less protein and thereby reduces overall feed costs by three to eight percent.

Reducing the environmental footprint
The greatest environmental challenge caused by excess protein in chicken feed is the residual nitrogen emissions coming from their manure. Nitrogen emissions are an environmental hazard for land, water and air. Because RONOZYME ProAct provides better protein digestibility, their manure will contain less nitrogen, thereby reducing the amount of nitrogen excreted into the environment.

In mid-2011, Novozymes and DSM Nutritional Products completed a lifecycle assessment (LCA) on the environmental benefits of RONOZYME ProAct. The study was published in The International Journal of Poultry Science in January 2012. The LCA shows that adding RONOZYME ProAct to feed significantly reduces nitrogen content of the manure.

In the U.S., there is a potential to reduce nitrogen content of chicken manure between 15,000-30,000 tons, corresponding to reduced emissions of ammonia of between 10,000-20,000 tons per year. The potential reduction of greenhouse gases (250,000-500,000 tons of  CO2), corresponds to taking 100,000-200,000 cars off the road in the U.S.

As a feed additive, RONOZYME ProAct is unique: It reduces costs, it is heat stable, and it reduces both nitrogen emissions and greenhouse gases. Most other solutions to reduce nitrogen emissions from manure come with a cost in terms of increased emissions of green house gases.

RONOZYME ProAct is jointly developed by Novozymes and DSM Nutritional Products. Established in 2001, the alliance together has launched more than 15 innovative feed enzyme products.